I don't know if anyone has already asked a similar question, there are many posts! But I drink 5-6 cups of white tea a day, at first because of it's high level of polyphenols, but am I over-doing it/is there any harm?

The only health concerns I know of with regards to tea are tooth staining and caffeine.

Tooth staining can be avoided by brushing your teeth with a non-abrasive whitening toothpaste, and getting regular cleanings. You should try to brush your teeth after drinking tea, but not right before (either eat something first, or wait an hour).

As for caffeine:

To experience acute caffeine poisoning, the average person would need to drink 250 cups of tea to get a lethal dose within 24 hours. At that point, you would go into hyponatremia (water poisoning) before being poisoned by the caffeine.

As for long-term caffeine effects, the AMH states that moderate caffeine consumption (300 mg, or about 7.5 cups of tea, per day) is not a health concern, provided that one leads a healthy lifestyle. If you are re-brewing the leaves at least once, that means you can drink about 15 cups of tea per day before the AMH thinks you could even start to have problems.

Oh in that case if you wanted to overdose on tea I guess you would have to turn to eating the leaves, like maybe add 2 pounds of tea to a pot let it infuse for 5 minutes strain it out and then drink the liquid and eat the leaves ...

I drink about 14-16 cups of green/white tea a day, and havn't had any problems drinking that much tea, except for a little insomnia.

i was looking thru some of the posts and just had to comment... 14-16 andy? wow... to me it sounds like that level might be dangerous (not because of the tea, but because of the liquid in general)- there is such a thing as drowning your cells. i drink 8 cups (oolong) and the only other beverage i drink are the occassional cup of coffee or alcoholic beverage.

Firstly, Andy is not talking about 14-16 8oz mugs. He tends toward the Asian styles and probably uses the wee Chinese cups.

Secondly, hyponatremia--or water intoxication--really isn't about how much water you can drink in a day. It's about how fast you drink it. As long as you drink it over the course of a day, you can drink a good couple gallons. (The kidneys in a normal functioning adult can process 14-16 liters of water a day.) As long as you don't chug a gallon at a time or go overboard when you are dehydrated (and I mean really dehydrated...not 'thirsty' dehydrated) it is incredibly unlikely that you will ever suffer from this condition.

I actually drink on average 3 liters of tea/day. Some days are a little less constrictive, I have drunk around a gallon in one day, more than a few times. This means that on average I drink about 12 cups of tea per day. Around 80% of these 12 cups are green tea, while 40% are post-primary infusions. On top of all the tea, I drink at LEAST 5 cups of water per day. In retrospect, I drink a lot of fluids.
With water poisoning, I think what happens is that your body is gaining more H2O than it needs, which dilutes the electrolyte balance in your blood. So, I believe all you would need is to rebalance the electrolytes by possibly just consuming more salty foods. I figure it all makes sense anyways because on average, I and everyone I know go way over the daily sodium needs, so why not balance it with excess fluids?

Monny wrote:drinking white tea is not at all a problem but the caffeine in the tea would create problem if you are addict to white tea.caffeine addictionlead to problem in digestion system and acidity.

That article is about coffee which is not the same as tea so it might not be completely accurate about tea.

I've lived in dry places in the Rocky Mountains most of my life and drink a lot of tea and water. Probably more than most people, but I like having tea when I work. So, I pretty much lose track of how much tea I actually drink.

But I don't think this has caused much harm. Tea is low in caffeine when you compare it to coffee or even soft drinks.